


do it for her (that is to say, you do it for him)

by weatheredlaw



Category: Jurassic World (2015)
Genre: Anxiety, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Fix-It, Insomnia, Post-Movie(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-30
Updated: 2015-11-30
Packaged: 2018-05-04 03:04:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5318048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weatheredlaw/pseuds/weatheredlaw
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“What can I say? You make me a little stupid.”</p><p>“That probably sounded better in your head.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	do it for her (that is to say, you do it for him)

In the after, Claire needs to figure something out. And so even though she doesn’t want him to go, not really — she asks him to anyway.

“It’s fine,” he says. “I’ve got a place I can be.” A pause. “Do you?”

The answer isn’t hard. Claire has an apartment in LA she’s been maintaining while she’s away. It’ll be warm, stuffy, and a little dusty, but it’s hers. Even though it won’t _feel_ that way, it is. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” He looks like he’s going to hug her. “I’m...” Barry is standing behind them, some thirty feet at the start of the dock, hands in his pockets, pretending he can’t hear, looking into the water lapping on the rocky edge of the island. “Travel safe, then.”

“You’re not leaving?”

“Next week,” he says. “I’ve got to—” The ferry blows its horn and Claire can see Karen behind her, standing impatiently with Scott and the boys. “I’ll let you know when I’m stateside.”

“You don’t have my number.”

Owen shrugs, starts backing up. This is nothing like it was before. He looks...disappointed, maybe. Three days ago he’d wanted to stick together, and she’d been in a haze of andrenaline and swallowing what she couldn’t say. Now it’s...well, it is what is.

Isn’t it?

 

* * *

 

Actually, the first three weeks she’s in the states, Claire stays with her sister in Wisconsin. The snow is still melting and someone at the strip mall needs to take down the Christmas wreaths, but it’s a good thing. She’s happy she’s there. She takes the spare room in the basement and tries to help with chores and cooking. She surprises Karen, who had apparently been assuming that her baby sister was being served breakfast in bed each morning for the past seven years, among a dozen other strangely improbable circumstances she’s imagined her being in.

“I had a kitchen,” Claire says, though it’s a loose definition of the word. It was mostly just an electric skillet, a microwave, and a can opener. Anything she wanted had to be special ordered. For three years, she ate a lot of ravioli in the comm room with Lowery, until Simon would start bringing her things she wanted. Pineapples and mangos, curry powder and jasmine rice. The memory of him, standing outside her little makeshift apartment with a bag of oranges in one hand and frozen chicken in the other does something, and when she touches her cheeks they’re wet.

“Smells good,” Scott says, coming into the room. The air gets stale and Karen goes cold by the sink, hands freezing as she peels potatoes. “Look at this, it’s nice—”

“It’ll be ready in twenty minutes,” Karen says. She keeps her eyes down and Scott backs out of the kitchen in surrender, doesn’t put up a fight. “He’s leaving next week.”

“Karen—”

“It’s for the best. The boys aren’t happy about it, but we—” Claire grabs her sister and wraps her in a brutal hug, squeezes tight and presses her face against her neck. “Hey, don’t cry. I’m a big girl.”

“At least one of us is.”

“You’re going to burn your pasta sauce.”

“ _Shit!_ “

Karen laughs, and somewhere between Scott leaving and Claire staying, three weeks becomes six weeks and Claire wakes up one morning realizing that, indescribably and maybe irresponsibly, this place is _home._

 

* * *

 

_“You’re not in LA.”_

“Owen?” Claire’s in the living room, standing in front of the TV while the boys try to watch something. They stop squabbling over the remote and are on her in a second, clammoring to get at the phone, shouting his name. “Stop!” She pushes them off and shuts herself in the powder room off the kitchen, sitting down on the toilet seat. “Where are you?”

 _“Good question.”_ He sounds far, maybe on speakerphone. _“I’m in Portland. Barry’s got a place here, I’m crashing with him.”_

“When did you get back?”

 _“I can’t hear you, it’s raining outside. Did you—”_ He cuts off, and the call goes dead. Claire swears and looks down. It’s a number she doesn’t recognize, but she puts him in her phone in case he calls again. Ten minutes go by and nothing, so she opens the door and bumps right into her sister.

“What are you doing?”

“Going to the bathroom.”

“Gray said that guy called.” She snatches the phone from Claire’s hand, inspecting the new contact. “Right.”

“He’s a friend,” Claire says. “We were there together—”

“Love in a time of dinosaurs,” Karen says, heading down the hall. “Call him back.”

“We got disconnected.”

“ _Call him back._ "

 

* * *

 

Claire doesn’t call him back.

Owen doesn’t call.

She is okay with that.

She is doing just fine.

 

* * *

 

After that first couple of months, Karen sets Claire up in the basement. “You’ve graduated to a full-fledged member of the house,” she says brightly.

“It’s _freezing_ down here.”

“No one’s really downstairs a lot. Sorry, I’ll get the heat going. But it’s got an entrance, and a kitchen.” The whole space is like a little apartment, actually, and Claire sort of feels more at home in it than she did in the boxy guest room. “Mom and dad would stay here. Scott’s brother and his wife. That sort of thing. We were going to rent it out, but, you know.” She waves her hand, Karen’s new, universal signal for “divorce.”

Claire pulls her into a hug without thinking. “This is really nice. I really, _really_ like it.”

“Oh.” Karen’s stiff for a moment before melting into the embrace. “Well. I’m glad. I want you to stay as long as you need to, okay?”

“Okay.”

 

* * *

 

Masrani Corp is quietly settling the Incident, and it becomes very clear early on that they don’t need Claire. Until they do.

Someone — and Claire would bet all her money on Lowery and Owen — emailed the new CEO a sharp, glowing photo of Claire leading the tyrannasaur out of her paddock, and now they’re clammoring to have her back, have her be the face of the cleanup effort. Claire isn’t sure how to say _go fuck yourself_ over a conference call with Simon’s wife, because she’s grieving and running a company at the same time, but she tries to communicate how _not_ into that she is with her eyes.

And it must get through because Mrs. Masrani stops calling and CNN stops playing the footage, and she gets a certified letter a couple of weeks later officially terminating her employment. So that’s nice.

“What do they want?” Karen asks, passing her a cup of coffee.

“They’re firing me.”

“ _What?_ “

Claire shrugs. “It is what it is.”

“Fuck what it is, they can’t fire you.”

“I won’t play the game. I’m not going to tour this country, saying the park was a tragic mistake, but we can rebuild. That was in the script. They emailed me a script. Questions to field me if I went on _Good Morning America._ “

Karen sits up. “You could have gone on _Good Morning America_?”

“I’ve already _been_ on _Good Morning America._ “

“Oh. I didn’t catch it.”

Claire laughs. “We weren’t speaking.”

“God.” Karen covers her face with her hands. “Did we really _do_ that?” Claire nods. “We suck.”

“We do.” Claire reaches out and takes her sister hand, giving it a squeeze. “I’ll find another job. I just—”

“You _live in the basement_ , Claire. Start embracing it.”

“Sweats and ice cream? Jerry Springer?”

“No.” Karen gets up to fill her mug again. “We keep it classy in this house. Judge Judy re-runs.”

 

* * *

 

Around March, Claire sends out a few resumes. She wonders if she should change her name, for work, but she’s thinking about it when her dad calls, and she can actually hear what he would say before he actually says it.

“ _Hell no_. We’re Dearings, Claire-bear. We don’t _run_ from _shit._ “ She thinks offhandedly that Owen and her father would get along very well. “You change your name you may as well change it for real. Get adopted out or something.”

“I’m thirty-four, dad.”

“Didn’t I read about that happening once?”

“Probably,” she deadpans, shifting the phone. “I love you, what’s up?”

“Just...thinkin’ about you.” Her dad is woefully unsentimental. For her birthday three years ago, he sent her a typed letter and a twenty dollar bill. “Wonderin’ if maybe I should come up for a visit.”

“Karen would shit herself.”

“Don’t say _shit_.”

“You should call her. Tell her what you’re thinking.” He makes a noise. “I’m gonna let you go,” Claire says, and her father sounds relieved. “I love you, though.”

“And you,” he says, chuckling. Dad never says _I love you._ Claire doesn’t think he ever learned how.

Sometimes the sources of her own dysfunctionailty are glaringly obvious.

 

* * *

 

In May, Gray graduates from middle school. “It’s a promotion,” he keeps saying. “Graduation implies  _completion_ —” And Zach swats him upside the head and straightens his tie. “Do I look cool?”

“You look very dapper,” Claire says. “Come on, let’s get a picture, the three of us.”

“It’s a selfie, Aunt Claire.”

“Whatever.”

When Karen comes back in, she’s stressing because Scott said he’d come, but he isn’t there, and Gray will notice the missing seat smack in the middle of the _entire row_ because he is clever, too clever for his own good—

“Karen. _Breathe._ “

“What if he doesn’t come?”

“Then he’s an asshole.”

They get there and Scott does come, and he’s not really an asshole, trying to talk with Claire and make good with Karen. The divorce isn’t final yet, but he’s hinting at all of them having dinner together sometime soon, and when Zach asks if he can spend the night next weeked at his dad’s, Karen looks like she might cry.

“Yeah, baby. It’s okay. It’s okay, right?”

Scott nods. “Yeah, of course. Gray?” Gray shrugs and stands closer to Claire, fingers twisting together with her own.

They all load back into the car, Gray asking for pizza and Karen shouting that she’ll _order_ pizza and do not _shout_. Claire leans against the window of the passenger’s seat, closing her eyes against the chaos. She likes this. She likes this a lot. She could probably sleep right here, actually, she hasn’t really been getting a lot of it since she moved in with Karen. The basement is easier to sleep in than the guest room, but her thoughts still wander, she still has these _dreams_ , and Karen asks pretty much every day if she’s sleeping okay —

“ _Shit!_ “ Karen slams on the breaks, and Claire’s body jolts forward, and there is something that _snaps_ inside of her.

A noise slides out of her throat, a snake that had been coiled in her belly and crawls into the universe without permission. Something hard and desperate (pathetic) sounding that makes everyone look at her while she tries to choke it back down.

The sob that escapes her must have been living there, too.

 

* * *

 

June. Claire decides to sleep in, but Karen is shaking her awake, this  _incredibly_ weird look on her face. Claire pushes her away. “Are you having a stroke, what’s the matter with you?”

“He’s _in the kitchen._ “

“God, _who?_ “

“ _Owen._ “ Claire sits up straight in bed and Karen _laughs._ Like a real, honest laugh, and turns to her closet, flipping through it. “You can’t wear pajamas.”

“I can’t wear _that_ either!” She tears a black dress out of Karen’s hands and pushes herself out of bed. “Go _away_ , I will dress myself.” Karen laughs again and practically skips up the stairs while Claire attempts to pick something out.

When she walks into the kitchen, he looks exactly the way he did when she left him, and there’s something important about that. He’s talking to Zach, but when she comes in, he stops, sitting up straight to look at her. “Hi.”

“Hi.” Claire can feel Karen staring behind her coffee cup, and Gray is about to burst with questions, so she steps further in and says, “Let’s talk outside.”

He doesn’t say anything as she leads him out onto the patio, shutting the door behind her and sitting in one of the flimsy plastic chairs. He sits next to her.

“You found me,” she says.

“Your nephews ratted you out. We’re friends on Facebook.”

“You would be.”

He laughs, stretching and looking up. “Gray asked first, to be fair. I’m just being a good, you know. Whatever.” He waves his hand. “How are you?”

“Okay. Not...doing anything.”

“Barry said you got fired.”

“I did. I’m glad he didn’t say something stupid like _layed off._ “

“You don’t play, you can’t stay.” Claire nods. “I’ve missed you.”

“You waited a long time to call me.” He has the decency to look sheepish. “And then you just show up here. Kind of bold.”

“What can I say? You make me a little stupid.”

“That probably sounded better in your head.”

“You know it did?” He laughs and looks out into the backyard. “I wanted to call you sooner. But I wasn’t sure...if you hadn’t wanted to talk to me, I think it would have hurt more than I want to believe it could. So I waited until the worst time and you didn’t tell me to shove it. Which was stupid, I know. And then after I was just...they wanted to know a lot. They impounded all my stuff and then ‘lost’ it or whatever. They took all my data and confiscated all the photos from the project. The ones I didn’t grab, anyway.” Owen looks at her. “I was being kind of a douche for a few months and then Barry got a different job and sold his house and I couldn’t come with him. So. Now I’m here.”

“Wait.” Claire leans forward. “You came _here_. Because you don’t have a job or a place to live.”

“Let’s not conflate those things with having no money, first of all. I’ve got a lot of that, okay. But, yeah. I...I don’t have a job. Or a place to live. I—”

The glass door slides open and Gray tumbles out, his voice high and almost manic. “ _You can stay here!_ Right, mom? Mom. _Mom._ Owen can stay with us, can’t he?”

“Whoa, hang on.” He puts his hands up, looking embarrased. “That’s not why—”

“In the guest room,” Gray insists. “For just a while, right? It would be _so cool_ , mom. _Mom._ “

Karen is still holding her coffee, looking at Claire for help or for _something_ , Claire has no idea what she could expect. “I...I mean for a little bit, sure.”

Owen stands up, hands still in front of him and on the defensive. “Ma’am, I didn’t come here because I wanted to impose on you, honest. I was just gonna get myself a room in town.”

“ _Mom_ —”

“Gray that’s enough.” Karen pinches the bridge of her nose, but she’s smiling when she looks at Owen. And Claire knows she means it when she says, “Please stay. Just a little while.” And the whole family is turning to face him, open and ready to do this and Claire wonders, desperately wants to _know_ what Owen is thinking. He scrubs a hand over his face, and maybe they shake, Claire can’t really be sure.

But he says, “Yeah, okay,” and that’s just...that.

 

* * *

 

Claire takes Karen’s car into the city for a job interview — before all  _this_ , she had a degree in business management, with a focus on risk analysis. The bitterness of that is not lost on her. So she starts looking into what she can actually do and finds a few tech places in Madison that might be willing to, well, take a risk. Maybe. The interviews go well. She makes it through the questions about the park with all the grace she can muster, then screams into her sweater when she gets back in the car.

Back at the house, no one is around, which is weird because Claire has the car and Owen’s unearthly green rental is in the driveway. A note in the kitchen says, _Claire: using the neighbors pool. go put a suit on you’re not allowed to eat granola and pout._

Which is unfair. She was _going_ to have a Nutrigrain bar.

But she changes anyway and crosses the grass to the neighbor’s house. The Barroca’s are in Barbados and their pool is enclosed and heated year round, because they have an insane amount of money to throw at almost everything, according to Karen. They’ve opened up the roof and turned down the temperature and Karen is sitting in the jacuzi while Owen dives headfirst into the deep end.

“Told you she’d come,” Gray says, grinning at Zach, who prompty goes under and blows bubbles at them. Owen surfaces, floating belly-up and grinning at her.

Claire walks over to the jacuzi, dipping a toe in and out before sitting on a deck chair. “Do you guys just break in here?”

“They love Gray and wish Zach loved them back, so they let us use this whenever they’re out of town. You should practice your diving.”

“You dive?” Owen’s beached himself on the edge of the pool by Claire’s feet, arms holding him out of the water. “Is that what I’m hearing?”

“I was on the dive team in high school.”

“And college,” Karen says, leaning her head back and closing her eyes.

Owen laughs. “Show me.”

“No.”

“Come _on._ Just one. It’s like eight feet deep down there.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Alright, whatever.” He pushes off and splashes her feet. “At least get _in_ , Jesus.”

Gray says, “You shouldn’t say Jesus,” and canonballs into the deep end.

 

* * *

 

Karen goes grocery shopping and comes back with a box of condoms.

“Oh my god, _what_ is your problem?” Claire hides the box under a bag of frozen carrots.

“They could be for me,” Karen says, grinning.

“Are they?”

“Of course not. They’re for _you._ “

“Yes, I gathered that when you _gave them to me—_ “

“He’s _sleeping_ here. And you’re downstairs! Just tell him to come on down, send him a booty call or whatever.”

“Are you hearing yourself?”

Karen rolls her eyes. “He came here for _you_ Claire. He didn’t come here because Wisconsin is where all good raptor wranglers go to retire. Give it up, he’s totally in love with you.”

“That is _not_ what is happening here and you know that.”

“Fine.” Karen picks up the box. “But you’re taking these downstairs.”

“If you check to see if any of these are missing—”

 

* * *

 

After a week of Owen sleeping in the guest bedroom, Claire suddenly becomes hyperaware of what she wants.

She wants a job.

She wants her own space.

She wants to have sex.

Not necessarily in that order.

She’s gotten a second interview at the only tech firm that didn’t look at her like she was a circus freak when she walked into the room. So she’s making progress on the first. The second will come in time.

The third could happen maybe now, Claire isn’t sure. Ever since Karen bought the condoms all she can picture is being naked and being naked with Owen and Karen wasn’t _wrong_ when she said how easy it would be.

 _God_ it would be so _easy._

It’s eleven and she’s laying in the dark, staring at the ceiling fan making lazy circles over her head. She reaches under her pillow.

 **claire:** are you awake?  
**owen:** i’m pretty much always awake

_Do it do it do it do it—_

**claire:** come down here

God, why does she sound so bossy? Is that what she sounds like? Is he laughing at her? She can’t hear anything, she doesn’t know what’s happening—

The door at the top of the stairs opens and closes, so quietly Claire almost doesn’t hear it. But she can hear him, shuffling in the dark, can hear him swear when he hits his shin on the coffee table in her pretend-adult living room.

“You live down here?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Keep talking, I’m trying to use echolocation to find you.”

“That’s not how that works.”

“I know, but if you keep talking then eventually I’ll find — _oof._ “ He trips over the end of her bed and lands on the floor. Claire laughs before she can stop herself, her eyes finally adjusting to having him in the room. He grins, resting his chin on her mattress. “You rang, m’lady?”

Claire’s breath hitches in her throat. Right. The text. Her head reaches for the light by her bed and turns it on. He looks tired.

“Come here.” Claire turns down part of her bed. Owen chews his lip for a second before crawling on all fours and getting in next to her. “I...”

“You can’t sleep.”

“Not well. Sometimes. It takes forever. I wanted to know if you...I just...I mean I was thinking about you—”

“ _Naked?_ Ms. Dearing, I am appalled.”

“Shut up.” She pushes him and he falls onto the pillow, laughing. “I mean, okay, _yeah._ “

“Be honest. You liked it.”

“I didn’t _imagine_ anything else.”

He nods. “So you’d like a real world demonstration.”

“Go back upstairs.”

“ _You_ texted me, remember?” Claire groans and leans against the headboard. “We don’t have to screw. We can just cuddle.”

“I want to...do. Something.”

Owen sits up a bit, pulling her closer to him. “Tell me what you want to do?”

“Like, spell it out for you?”

“I’d have to write it down, I’m not good with stuff like that—” She gives him a soft pinch and he chuckles, surprising her when he pulls her down for a kiss. It’s a quick one, and it makes a lot of promises. Claire swings her legs over his hip and leans down to press her mouth to his ear.

“You want me to tell you what I wanted to do to you?”

“Yes.”

“So you want to hear how I want my mouth on you—” His breath hitches. Claire’s pride swells, just a bit. “That I want you to come in my mouth? That I want to make you come, and I want you to look right at me when you do it?”

He shivers. “ _Please._ “

Claire nods, shifting herself to move between the space of his legs. She slides his pajamas and boxers over the crest of his hip bones, down until he kicks them off and he’s there, waiting, half hard in front of her. Claire knows she wants to do this, but her stomach still turns with anxiety and first-time butterflies and she’s going to mess this up, like the very first time she did it, sixteen and shaky and—

“Claire.” Owen reaches down and strokes his thumb over her temple. He smiles. “You’re beautiful.” It shocks a little puff of air from her, right over his cock and he groans, head tipping back. “ _Shit._ “

Okay. She can do this.

She takes him in her hand, thumb ghosting over the tip before she strokes down, nice and slow, and then up, just a bit quicker. Devil’s in the details, she thinks, and works him over slowly until he hard in her hand and he looks at her, eyes blown and needy, and she pushes herself up and slides her tongue across the underside of his cock before wrapping her lips around him. He flinches just hard enough to spook her, but she waves off his apology. Now that she has him, she remembers perfectly well how to do this, and how good she’s always been at it. She lets him put a hand in her hair, but he doesn’t tug. He just sifts his fingers through it, watching her carefully, making all the right noises.

When he comes, there’s no big show about it. He doesn’t shout or swear, but he strokes his thumb over her brow, and she sees him and he nods. Claire nods, too, and swallows. He only swears when he sees her come up, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Jesus _fuck._ “

“That was good?”

“Um, yeah?” He laughs, pulling her flush against his chest. His hand slips under her tshirt and grazes a nipple, drawing a sharp moan from her. “There we go.”

“I didn’t do it because I need you to—”

“Can I, though?” He pushes his mouth against her ear, his hand dropping between her legs, palm grinding against her cunt. “I want to.”

“ _Owen—_ ”

“You have to tell me.” She nods. “Excellent.” He sounds like a dork, she wants to say, but she’s too distracted by the fact that his fingers are down her underwear, and she wants to tell him that his trashcan lid hands are going to stretch them out, but he shoves them past her hips and rolls her onto her back before she can whine about it.

 

* * *

 

He wakes her up at five rolling out of bed. Claire turns to grab his hand, but when he looks at her, he isn’t really  _looking_ at her. It’s a spooky kind of look, the kind that makes Claire think of war portraits and black and white photos. She pulls back, but he doesn’t seem to see her, still, and he’s just sitting, just watching, and Claire realizes he’s remembering and sits up with him. “Owen?”

“Hmm?” He snaps out of it, looking tired and old and Claire wants to pull him back into bed and sleep away the rest of the day, even though she knows he couldn’t do it. “Sorry. It’s early, I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“Karen’s up,” she says. She can hear the sounds of coffee being made. “You wanna go upstairs?”

Owen shakes his head. “I just—”

“You don’t have to stay here.”

He laughs. “It’s not that. I want to stay. I want...a lot of things.”

“We don’t have to sleep.”

“Right.”

She manages to pull him back and he’s flush with her again. She can feel him, he’s hard against her leg and he opens his mouth to apologize, but Claire answers with a hand around his dick and he groans instead. He chokes on something and Claire reaches wordlessly for the grocery bag under her bed, unearthing the box of condoms and yanking one out.

“Here,” she says.

“ _Claire._ “

“I think if you don’t do it, I’ll have to beg. And I hate doing that.”

Owen shifts, hands pushing her t-shirt up and underwear down. She rips the condom package open and rolls it over his cock. He leans down and kisses her neck under her ear and says, “I might like to see that.” He fingers her open for a few quick strokes before he pushes his cock at her entrance and rolls his hips. He goes slow, filling and stretching her until Claire scratches at his back, a whine caught high in her throat. When he’s in and when he pulls out, the noise escapes and he laughs.

“Fuck me,” she says, and he complies.

It’s a brutal, possessive pace he sets. His hands scrape her sides, not too hard, and she digs her heels into his back while he thrusts, the sound of skin on skin making her wetter, setting her nerves on fire. She tips her head back and lets go, surrenders to whatever feeling this _is_ , in this exact moment.

In between his thrusts, she hears it. So quiet, maybe she wasn’t meant to, but Claire thinks otherwise.

“I love you.”

 

* * *

 

Claire gets the job at the tech firm, but she doesn’t move out. Not right away. She still wants her own space, but suddenly having Owen downstairs with her every night is feeling okay. She’ll leave, eventually, and she could probably talk him into going with her, but right now —

she’s okay.

And she’s okay because she’s getting better. Because she’s working through some things. She’s okay because she has everyone, and she’ll keep having them. She’s okay because she doesn’t _need_ a reason anymore to say it.

She’s just okay.

Not great. Not perfect. Not healed. But okay.

She is in love, too, and that might be a reason.

Claire’s never been a cuddler before, but Owen is big on it. In bed, on the couch, in the living room floor while he plays video games with the boys. He’s not about hiding it, either, and will hold her in front of everyone, burying his face against her neck. He tells her he likes the way her shampoo smells, and she doesn’t feel like telling him she doesn’t like it. Mostly because she doesn’t want to lie. Because she does. She likes it a lot.

“Hey,” he says to her one night, tugging his shirt over his head. “I’m really happy for you about the job.”

Claire sits up, leaning forward to kiss his shoulder. “Thanks.”

“And when you’re ready to leave here, I want you to know that I…want to go with you.”

“I want you to go with me, too.”

He blinks. “So that’s okay?”

“Yeah? Why wouldn’t it be?”

“I…don’t know. For some reason I thought it might be more complicated.”

“I don’t want complicated,” she says. “At least not more complicated than things already are.”

“We _are_ complicated,” he admits. “But…it’s good. Right?”

“It is.”

“So when you’re ready to move into a basement of your own—” She shoves him and he topples over dramatically, grinning. “I get it.”

“Good,” she says, pulling him up and kissing him. “Wouldn’t want to complicate things.”


End file.
